This week, Colorado Senator Michael Bennet (D) finally ended his silence on the Employee Free Choice Act by officially coming out against that legislation. While this is disappointing, it is not surprising -- unlike courageous pro-EFCA Colorado Democrats in tough districts (Perlmutter, Markey, etc.), Bennet has been trying to dance away from answering any questions on the issue for months.
What is surprising, however, is the labor movement's messaging about Bennet's announcement. Check this out from KDVR:
"It really is a non issue," said Matt Moseley, a spokesman for the AFL-CIO. "He has consistently indicated to us that he had concerns with the original language, he also consistently said to us that he would work to find a compromise should labor law reform legislation come up again in the future."
This is a perfect example of one of the big reasons the progressive movement loses so many legislative battles, even with a Democratic president and Congress. Unlike conservative groups who consistently push their agenda with the "it's never enough" message*, many major progressive organizations sacrifice their stated missions at the altar of partisanship. We've seen this from Washington progressive think tanks on trade issues, we've seen it from D.C.-based anti-war organizations, and now we are seeing it from labor. Instead of jealously pursuing their organizations' mission and agenda, progressive organizational leaders increasingly defend Democratic Party candidates even as those candidates trample their organizations' mission and agenda.
To be sure, Bennet would be better in the Senate than Republican nominee Ken Buck. But that's not the issue here -- the issue is organized labor's message.
It's one thing for labor leaders to say they are outraged/disappointed in Bennet's EFCA announcement, but that they are still backing him against Buck because Buck would be worse. That would make perfect sense. But it's quite another thing for labor leaders to make excuses for Bennet by insisting that labor's top legislative priority is a "non issue," no longer important, and perhaps worst of all, in need of yet more bill-weakening compromises.
In doing that, these labor leaders are publicly discrediting their own stated organizational mission in order to prop up a Democrat to labor union members. That's a betrayal both of labor's priorities and of labor union members that these labor leaders represent. It's also exactly why a bill like the Employee Free Choice Act will never pass. When organized labor leaders effectively tell Democratic politicians that labor will defend those Democrats even as those Democrats actively crush labor's agenda, those labor leaders are creating a dynamic that encourages Democrats to do just that.
* The best example of this is the mantra from conservative business groups that President Obama is "anti-business." This, despite the Obama administration's support of the bank bailout; its inclusion of massive tax breaks in the stimulus bill; it's weakening of the financial bill, and its opposition to the public option in the health care bill. But, then, that's the whole point: Conservative business groups know that they win when they continue to aggressively push the "it's never enough" message.
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Jim Wallis: It Takes a Movement: Why a 'Movement' Is Necessary -- Part 3
As long as any politician or party or union or movement goes with the "Whatever we can get" approach, they are doomed to failure -- in either the near term, or, for sure, in the long term ...
Dr. King did not take the "Whatever we can get" approach to the Civil Right struggle ... perhaps that is instructive.
Bennet is not simply "whatever we can get," he was a better candidate than Romanoff, and there is no reason to believe he won't do better than Romanoff would have as a senator, given that it was Romanoff who botched his own chances and ran like a regressive, instead of the idealist he pretended to be. (If he really was an idealist who believed his own charges, why did he promptly ask his supporters to vote for the man whose character he just tried to destroy?)
The Denver Post published their version, their opinion of what Bennet did to the finances of DPS and because they have been in Bennet's corner since before he was appointed, well you can guess.
Contrary to what Bennet fans say the New York Times Stands By Its Story.
It has never retracted a syllable. And those who say otherwise know that.
The Pulitzer Prize winning author of that story, Gretchen Morgensen knows what she is doing when she writes. The Bennet flim flam at DPS will hurt.
Support progressives, reject sellouts and conservatives.
Country first, party second.
We ought to stop calling folks that don't support Progressive IDEALS and IDEAS by the term "Progressive".
The Dem Party is not Progressive, neither is WObama, the Clintons, nor Rahm and all the rest of them, including Geinter!
ConservaDems and CorpraDems are not Progressives.
Truth is, there are damned few Progressives in Congress, and none in the Adminsitration!
Time for folks who believe in Progressive ideals and ideas to come fully to the realization that the Dem Party and the vast majority of Dem candidates are not aligned with their hopes, and values. The WObama administration, the Dem Party DLC, etc. ought to be, by now, enough proof of that.
If you're still an Obama sycophant, or a Dem Party "true believer," great. Just please don't refer to yourself as a Progressive.
Time for Progressives to look at the pattern the Anti-Abortion folks use: if you are not really, fully with their position, you are against it -- plain and simple! They don't accept sort ofs, and half-ways, and compromises, and partisanship, and all such forms of being "half with" their position. Neither should Progressives!
Progressives should think twice about voting for folks that DO NOT support Progressive values!
Sadly, elections now days, for Progressives, come down to picking the candidate that is less anti-Progressive ...
"When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
You are either for a policy because you put a genuine effort to enact it when you have the chance... or you are against it. Save the posturing and triangulating for some of the party first apologists here who eat that stuff up with an oversized spoon.
Gov. Ritter appointed Bennet even though none of the recommendation emails that Ritter asked for mentioned Bennet even once. The Denver Post said that the Obama White House pressured Ritter to appoint Bennet.
Prior to our primary vote:
Obama endorsed Bennet prior to our Caucus, County Assemblies or Primary vote.
Obama directly raised Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars for Bennet in Denver.
Obama Personally Campaigned for Bennet in Colorado and elsewhere.
Obama caused 460,000 Robo-Calls to be placed to Corado Dems with his endorsement.
Obama Joined a 20,000+ telephone conference call to Colorado Dems with his endorsement.
Obama caused thousands of Telemarketing Calls to be made to Colorado Dems From Washington DC, just prior to the Primary on Aug. 10.
Our corrupt State Democratic Party leaders allowed OFA to officially organize for Bennet and do it out of the State Democratic Party offices.
The DNC and DSCC gave all their Colorado Senate race money to Bennet, thus financially handicapping Romanoff and removing him from prime individual donor lists and preferential media treatment,
A huge Breach Of Trust With Rank & File Colorado Dems.
To get our Honest Primary back send a strong message to our Corrupt State and National Party Officials by
WRITING-IN "Romanoff"
or
Just Leaving the Space next to Bennet's Name "BLANK"
We need an Honest Primary in 2012.
If corporations and the DNC had stayed out of the race, Romanoff would be the candidate. And we would have had a real Democrat in the Senate.
I want, so much, to vote for him. If I could have one wish it would be for Bennet to drop out of the race and endorse Kinsley, then join Kinsley on the campaign trail.
But Buck is intolerable. Go listen to him speak if you get a chance. The vibes are ... ugh. I once saw a man walk down a stable and every horse he passed flattened it's ears and shied. Turns out he was physically abusing them at night. Buck gives me the same feeling in my gut that that guy did even before I saw the horses spooking.
And if Bennet doesn't win he'll have power to abuse.
He negotiated 6 bargaining agreements when he was Chief of Staff for the Mayor. He has the
respect and endorsement of the American Federation of Teachers, as well as others. Wish
David Sirota would get off his soap box against Senator Bennet. These are difficult times, and
every human being needs to know he or she has our support even if we don't agree with everything
they say or do. It is time to vote, and vote for the Democrats. Those who stand up for what is right
and what we believe in must be supported.
If a secret ballot is what people want, then, they can ask to get a formal election, with voting booths, monitors, and so forth. (I believe the same goes for a decertification election - if they get a petition of some fraction of employees, they can demand a secret ballot election.)
All I'm seeing here are pundit-points. I think the legislation is very even handed. Yes, it helps unions - but if unions are helped by making the law more even handed, that's fair. The law, as it stands, is anti-democracy.
That way we'll all know for sure that the secret ballot hasn't been gotten rid of -- and it puts employers and workers on a perfectly even playing field.
But you don't want that, do you?
They couldn't possibly know anything you don't, or a greater interest than yours.
The Dems of that sort very likely voted for Bennett in the primaries, and will vote for him again in the general.
There are those that vote for positions and ideals, and so for candidates that support the ones they care about.
These are the Romanoff supporters, largely. Since Bennett doesn't support the same positions as Andrew advocated, folks like that have a hell of a dilemma on their hands!
For folks like that, it is not Party "right or wrong"; any more than it is that way for country!
For us, that approach strikes as as remarkably not different than how Repubs are.
There are those that vote for candidates -- they want to vote for the winner, no matter who that is, or who vote for their favorite "rock star."
The Obama sycophants, as Sirota so aptly calls them. The Palin crowd is of the same ilk.
There are those that vote against candidates, and the position they hold.
That would be me voting against Buck; of course that leaves me to decide who to vote for -- since I still have to pick one ...
There are those that vote against candidates in pure protest.
In 2008, some Repubs voted for Obama; they'll likely never do that again in their lifetimes.
If Andrew Romanoff's charges were true, why when he lost the primary did he promptly urge his supporters to vote for Michael Bennet, the supposedly "corporatist," venal and self-serving candidate? How could he lower the standards he ran on so quickly and easily?
Could it be because Romanoff's charges were so soundly debunked and discredited by all major Colorado news outlets? Or that the supposedly "damning" NYT article was revealed to have been largely sourced from a Romanoff campaign operative?
Could it be he, too, is just another politician who recognized the pragmatics of party politics and has dropped back into the fold in order to keep what remains of his own political future intact?
Nawwwww -- MUST be that the Colorado Dems who rejected his bad campaign tactics in favor of a man who proved to have nothing damning against him were all just deluded or corrupt themselves. Yah, must be it.
Keep going with that attitude, folks, and you'll find the Republicans congratulating themselves for having divided us effectively, yet again.
Card check is one of the more insidious legislative ideas of my lifetime. It's never going to become law. Move on.